


Promises of Eternity

by indevan



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Afterlife, Fluff, M/M, Reunions, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-17
Updated: 2018-10-17
Packaged: 2019-08-03 17:19:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16330301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indevan/pseuds/indevan
Summary: Moments like these were why he remembered that this was a good thing and all the stress would be worth it.  These moments came when they were alone in their apartment, just the two of them, and Goten could marvel at their matching rings and know that, in four days time, he would finally be able to call Trunks his husband





	Promises of Eternity

It should have been the happiest time of his life and, for the most part, it was.  Goten watched the bow of Trunks’s back as he leaned over the side of the bed to put his socks on.  He fit his fingers in the spaces between the bumps in his spine and sighed happily. Moments like these were why he remembered that this was a good thing and all the stress would be worth it.  These moments came when they were alone in their apartment, just the two of them, and Goten could marvel at their matching rings and know that, in four days time, he would finally be able to call Trunks his husband.

It was the other times that pushed him.

Their mothers were equally adamant about planning every inch of the wedding.  For his mother, he was the baby--her youngest--and she wanted to have a say in the planning.  For Trunks’s mom, he was her first to be married, and  _ she _ wanted to have a say in the planning.  Bulma used the argument that she was paying for almost all of it, which was fair.  But, of course, a consummate mama’s boy, he also saw his mother’s point of view.

And, of course, very rarely was it asked if either he or Trunks wanted a say in the planning.

It was exhausting.  Goten was an ER nurse and was used to stressful situations but, honestly, he would rather be at the hospital than be between his mother and future mother-in-law when they got to arguing over flowers and centerpieces.

Not that he had a choice now.  He had the next four days, the wedding, and then two weeks off for his honeymoon.  Those four days, he thought, were going to be hell.

Trunks arched his back in a stretch and laid down on the bed.  Goten scooted closer so he could rest his head on his lap from where he kneeled.

“I’m not ready to go to battle,” Trunks said with a sigh. “I just want to fast-forward to the wedding, baby.”

Goten stroked his hair away from his forehead and nodded.

“I know.  Me too.”

“Although…”

“Although?”

He didn’t like the sound of that.  Back when they were younger, whenever there would be a problem, Trunks would sometimes say “Although…” and come up with some asinine scheme.  Goten nibbled his lip, but let him talk.

“So...I’ve noticed something with my dad.”

He winced without meaning to.  He dropped his hands to frame Trunks’s face and began massaging his jaw muscles.  He tended to carry a lot of tension there.

“Relax your mouth,” he said. “And I thought your dad was over the whole ‘you dating the son of his biggest rival’ thing.”

Trunks relaxed his mouth, but kept talking, which made it more difficult.

“Oh, he is.  It’s.” He exhaled through his nose. “Maybe I’m imagining things but he seems...like he’s a bit left out in the whole wedding planning thing.”

Goten hadn’t noticed.  Usually, when planning went on, he just tried to make his own voice heard over his mother’s and Bulma’s or went around behind their backs to call the florist and bakery.

“I figured he thought that the whole thing was ridiculous.”

He worked his thumbs into the muscles on Trunks’s cheekbones and then moved back to stroke his forehead.  Trunks lifted his arms back and let them rest loosely around his backside from where he knelt on the mattress.

“I thought so, too, but I noticed him starting to say things and then stop and I think he, like, wants to get involved.”

Truthfully, Goten still found that hard to believe.

“Trunks…”

He tilted his chin so he could look at him better. “No, really.  Hand to Dende, I heard him say something about Saiyan traditions so I think...I dunno, I think it’d be nice to surprise him and include something Saiyan in the wedding.”

Goten looked down at him: at his blue eyes shining and the way, at any angle, he looked unbearably beautiful.  He knew that if Trunks asked for anything for the wedding, he would give in because he was the marshmallow and Trunks was the wild one.  It was why they worked together so well. “Perfectly complementary” Piccolo said in that gruff yet fond way of his.

“But how?” he asked. “We don’t know any Saiyan traditions.  Should we ask your dad?”

Trunks shook his head from his spot on his lap.

“No.  I want it to be a surprise.  And, anyway, he was a little kid when the planet blew up so he only knew what he could remember and what Nappa told him.”

“Who’s Nappa?”

Goten had heard the name before.  Had seen Gohan’s eyes glaze over and his hands shake when someone mentioned him.

“The guy who raised him, I guess.  Another Saiyan.”

Goten figured that he was dead.  He hadn’t been told much of what happened before he was born.  It hurt Gohan too much to talk about it and everyone else just saw him as a kid they had to keep innocent.  Until, of course, they needed  _ him _ to help save the universe.  Then he was no longer a little boy who needed to be protected.

“How can we ask him?”

“Dragon Balls.”

He didn’t like that idea.  He didn’t want to resurrect someone whose name made his brother react that way.

“Trunks…”

He turned his head so he could kiss the inside of Goten’s wrist lightly.

“Oh, no.  Not bring him back to life.  I figure we can use the first wish to get a portal or something to Otherworld and talk to him and use the other wish for a portal back.”

From the sound of it, Trunks had clearly put thought into this plan.

“Do you have the Dragon Balls already?”

“Nope.”

Or maybe not.  Trunks moved his arms back to his front and held one hand out, palm up.  Goten reached out and laced their fingers loosely. He loved this constant contact.  Even before they were together, they were always so tactile.

“I was thinking,” Trunks said, “we take a break from all this stress and spend the day collecting them.  I nicked the radar from my mom’s lab when I was over there last night.”

That...that honestly sounded amazing.  Goten bent down so he could press a kiss to his lips.

“Let’s go.”

\--

Off and on, he and Trunks had been going on adventures to collect the Dragon Ball since they were kids.  He knew, as well, that this was how Bulma met Goten’s dad when they were kids so, in a way, they were just furthering the legacy.  Now, of course, it was far easier with the ability of flight. Or, if his dad was told to get them, he could just use instant transmission to pop over to wherever they were.

There was still an excitement, though, of feeling the wind in their faces and the heft of the orb in their hand when they finally got one.  Summoning Shenron also never really lost its charm. It was a norm in his life from when he was a baby but there was always something awe-inspiring at seeing the sky turn black and seeing light shoot out and form the dragon.

It turned out that their first wish covered both their entrance and return from Otherworld in the form of a portable device in Trunks’s hand that Goten figured functioned similarly to Instant Transmission.  Their second wish, then, went to something Trunks whispered near Shenron’s face. Goten was sure that he would find out what it was in a few day’s time.

They flickered into Otherworld and it wasn’t what Goten remembered.  He had been dead once (twice, really, but the second time had been so brief that he hadn’t even had time to take in his surroundings) and he had been told to make his way to King Kai’s Planet along with Trunks and his brother.  It had been bright and cheery, full of puffy clouds. This was dank and dark with stone structures jutting up from the barren ground and a fountain of what looked like blood.

“Where’s this?” he asked.

“Hell, I’d guess,” Trunks said. “My dad described it to me once.  Sounds about right. I told Shenron to transport us to where the Saiyans went.  I guess most of them ended up here.”

Goten looked around.  He could sense several strong ki signatures around them and it made his shoulders tense.

“What’s this Nappa guy look like?”

“No idea.  Guess we’ll just try and find some Saiyans and ask.”

Trunks seemed a bit unsure, as if his plan sounded better in theory than practice, so Goten reached out to take his hand.  Run his thumb along the ridges of his knuckles. Trunks gave him a soft smile in return.

“I mean, if we sense ki, we should be able to sense if they’re a Saiyan, right?” he asked.

He knew they had more advanced senses as Saiyans and, if they combined it with their ability to sense energy, they could probably do it.  Trunks nodded, clearly considering what Goten had just been thinking. Sometimes it could be a bit annoying at how they were so often on the same wavelength.  Bulma said it was probably due to how often they fused. Most of the time, though, it was nice that Trunks seemed to think what he thought because it helped him actually vocalize what he wanted and be understood.

Goten closed his eyes.  He could feel strange ki that felt like several people at once standing on top of each other.  His father, Vegeta, Piccolo, his brother--he shuddered and veered away from it. There was a cluster of energies a bit off, past the fountain of blood, that felt decidedly Saiyan.

“There it is,” Trunks murmured, apparently sensing it, too.

It was like they were called to it.

_ Blood calls to blood… _

The thought entered his mind, unbidden, and he felt that it was a bit on the nose considering where they were standing.  They pursued it, feeling the pulse grow hotter and hotter until he could see a small band of people standing together. They had halos floating above their heads but that wasn’t what Goten noticed.

He noticed their tails.

The two of them were close enough to the Saiyans to see them clearly, but they hadn’t been noticed yet.  Trunks strode towards them confidently and Goten trailed after, not as sure.

“Hey,” he said.

A woman noticed them first.  She was the shortest one there and had a surprisingly sweet face.  From what Goten knew about the Saiyans was that they were warriors.  This woman was almost slight and she didn’t bear the air of someone battle-hardened.

“You don’t have a halo,” she said to Trunks. “Why are you here?”

He reached back and dragged Goten up.

“We came for a visit.  We’re looking for a Saiyan named Nappa.”

The man next to her gave a snort and Goten looked at him, only to stumble back in surprise.  He looked so much like his father. So much like him.

“What do you want with that asshole?” he asked.

The woman placed her hand on his bicep and smiled up at him. “Bardock, don’t be rude.”

A third Saiyan with them turned towards them.  Like the man the woman had called Bardock, there was something familiar about his face.

“You look like me,” the man said, eyes on Trunks. “And you smell like a Saiyan.”

_ Oh. _

The beard threw him for a moment, but now he realized that he was a taller version of Vegeta.

_ Wait a minute… _

“I am a Saiyan,” Trunks said. “Listen--”

“Your hair color says otherwise.”

He sighed in frustration. “Okay, I’m half.  Whatever.”

Trunks was losing what little patience he had and Goten stepped forward to put a comforting hand on his shoulder.  When he did, the short woman finally noticed him and her eyes went wide.

“Kakarrot?” she asked.

“Kakarrot?” Bardock echoed.

He looked at him and Goten got the feeling of looking into a slightly warped mirror.  This man looked like his father, but not. Looked like him, but not. He had a hard set to his eyes and a harsh scar carved into one cheek.

“N-no,” he finally managed. “But that’s my dad’s name.”

“Dad?”

The woman got closer, taking her hands in his.

“Your father’s name is Kakarrot?”

“Well, he prefers Goku but--”

She cut him off with a cry and hugged him tightly.  Bardock sighed and reached out to pull her back.

“Gine, enough.”

His gaze lingered on Goten for a moment and his mouth twisted into a slight smile.

“I got a grandkid, eh?”

He had already put it together but the confirmation that he was in hell being hugged by his grandmother was a bit of a shocker.

“And you, purple hair?”

Trunks put his hands on his hips. “Guess.”

To illustrate his point, he reached into his t-shirt and pulled out a necklace given to him when he turned eighteen.  He knew that Trunks never took it off, even if he pretended not to understand the significance of it. To them both, it was obvious, especially since his father--who rarely, if ever, gave gifts--had given it to him.

“My father gave me this,” Trunks said and then, with a bit of a smirk, added, “Grandpa.”

Goten wasn’t sure how the man would react.  Certainly not the same as how his grandmother (Gine?) had reacted.  Saiyans weren’t huggers, right?

“You two,” he barked to Gine and Bardock. “Bow before your Prince.”

Goten laughed and Trunks cringed.

“Listen, listen.” He sighed. “Goten and I are getting married in a few days and--”

“Married?” Gine exclaimed. “How wonderful!  Bardock, do you remember our wedding?”

He shrugged and said, “I guess.”

Somehow, Goten knew that he probably remembered it very clearly and was just being difficult.

“We had it near Third Class housing and all of our friends were there,” she said. “Toma held baby Raditz while we did the dance.”

“Dance?”

It dawned on him that they didn’t need Nappa.  He could ask his grandparents about the traditions.  Trunks seemed to realize this as well, because he looked a lot less put out by having his royalty be declared in the middle of Hell.

“That’s why we came down here,” Goten explained. “We wanted to surprise Trunks’s dad by having something Saiyan in the wedding, but we didn’t know who to ask so, uh...long story short, we came here.”

Bardock listened to this with folded arms and snorted through his nose.

“To find Nappa.”

The King glared at him. “Nappa was a leading General in the Saiyan army.  You, meanwhile, commanded a band of--”

“Damn fine warriors,” he shot back.  Rolled his eyes. “The only good thing about being dead is that I don’t have to pretend rank and shit matter anymore.”

Gine stepped between them in a well-practiced movement.  Goten had a feeling that this happened a lot in the afterlife.

“Anyway,” Trunks said, emphasizing the word. “What’s this dance?”

Gine looked at him and smiled.  He decided he liked her. The jury was out on Bardock but there was something kind and warm about his grandmother.

“We can show you,” she said.

“We can?” Bardock balked.

She elbowed him in the side and he screwed his mouth to the side.

“Yeah,” he said gruffly. “We can.”

\--

Goten was reluctant to go, but he knew that they had to.  They had to practice the dance if they wanted it to be ready for the wedding.  Even so, when they found out that the portal Shenron had given to them didn’t destroy itself after a round trip, he put it in their drawer at home.  He wasn’t sure when he would use it, but he knew he would. If only to see his grandmother again.

“Your grandfather’s tall,” he said to Trunks when they got back to their house, because he wasn’t sure what else to say.

“Yeah.  Makes me wonder why dad’s so short and if I could have gotten some of that height…”

“You’re the perfect size.”

Goten looped his arms around his waist and pulled him close for a kiss.  They broke apart and Trunks checked his phone. Immediately, he cringed.

“I’m glad there’s no reception in Hell, because my mom  _ and _ your mom have been texting me nonstop.”

Goten didn’t even want to  _ look _ at his phone.

“We should get started,” he said. “On practicing.”

Trunks put his phone on the nightstand and turned to him.  Cocked his head to the side.

“We could,” he said. “We should...but…”

He bit his lip and leveled him with a gaze.  Goten felt a laugh bubble up in his throat. He knew that look.  His eyelids would fall to half-mast and he’d nibble lightly on his full lower lip.  He nodded and drew in close. Let Trunks wrap him back up in his arms.

“We have three days to practice,” he said in a throaty voice.

“Plenty of time,” Goten said back.

Trunks put his mouth over his and pushed him down onto the bed.

\--

Despite the arguments with their mothers, the stress, the planning, and--everything, the wedding went off perfectly.  Goten felt like the ceremony was a blur. He was aware only of Trunks across from him, holding his hands, and then getting to kiss him in front of everyone.  Then there was a flurry of photographs and a cocktail hour where they barely got a chance to grab any of the food.

By the time the reception came around, Goten was nearly starving and worried about their upcoming dance.  Before, their first dance was going to be them awkwardly moving in a circle to a carefully chosen song, but now…

They hadn’t had enough practice.

Trunks’s hand stayed over his as they sat at their table, having person after person come and congratulate them.  Goten didn’t know half of them and the ones he  _ did _ know all kind of blended together.  His family, he saw. Bra and Pan were flinging leftover flower petals at each other, shrieking with laughter.  His mother was berating his father for taking hors d’oeuvres from the cocktail hour and shoving them into his pockets to eat later.  Bulma was still crying, overcome with emotion, while Vegeta sighed and held a tissue box out for her to grab from. His brother sat with Videl, his arm hooked behind her chair.  Her hand was held loosely in his and Goten hoped he and Trunks would look that comfortable and happy that far into their marriage.

Too soon, Trunks reached out to squeeze his hand and asked, “You ready?”

As he’d ever be.

“Now, the happy could would like to perform, for their first dance, something relating to their shared heritage of being--uh.” The DJ paused. “Saiyan?”

The dance floor cleared in preparation for their first dance and Goten watched Trunks take off his suit jacket.  Watched him loosen his tie. He did the same, feeling a bit foolish standing there shirtless, even if he wasn’t alone.  Murmurs rippled through the crowd and he pushed them out. He focused on his husband--husband!--standing in front of him shirtless.  Trunks had the box containing their blades by the DJ booth. Goten took his pair and took a step back to fall into the starting position.

The music changed to something drum heavy and powerful.  Goten could feel it in the soles of his feet, down in knees.  He looked at Trunks and held his blades up. To the music, they moved.  They met their blades, moving and dancing around each other in a way that mixed fight and movement.  He parried and moved, jabbing without trying to hit him. Like with fusion, like with anything they did, they caught each other’s rhythm easily.

At the end, he held his blades up in an X shape above his head, and saw Trunks do the same.  He was panting and sweaty, his suit pants undoubtedly showing the sweat the same way the dove gray trousers Trunks wore did.

They walked towards each other and, at the same time, brought out one of their knives to meet blade to blade.  The music faded out and, after a moment’s hesitation, the guests began to clap. Goten turned to the table where their parents sat.  The tissue box that Vegeta had been holding had fallen on the table and he stared at them in open shock and confusion. Trunks took his hand and led him to the table.  He placed the knives on it and slid into an empty seat next to his father.

“What did you think?”

“How did you two learn that?”

“Took a day trip to hell and learned it from Goten’s grandparents.”

That drew his mother’s attention.

“You what?”

“My parents?” his father asked, mouth full. “Are they nice?”

Goten smiled and widened his eyes, not sure how else to respond.

\--

They were leaving tomorrow on their honeymoon, but tonight it was just them in their room with haphazardly packed suitcases and their own bottle to split between them.

Goten was reminded of when they were teenagers, young and wild, and would steal bottles of champagne from the Capsule Corp New Year’s party and drink from them through straws on the rooftop together.  Watch the fireworks. It was on one of those nights that Trunks first kissed him while fiery flowers burst in the air around them as if the sky was coming.

Tonight they sat on the bed and Goten tried not to think too much about the portal to Hell he had in his bedside drawer.  He would use it, he was sure, but he didn’t want to abuse it. But there was a portal to his family, to his heritage, and he wanted it.  What was that thought? Blood calls to blood? Maybe.

“Hey, babe?”

He passed the bottle to Trunks after taking a sip.  They were naked and giddy and married. They were married.  It felt so good to roll around in his head. Like champagne bottles popping.  Like the clang of metal as their blades met in the dance.

“Yeah?”

Trunks took a long pull from the bottle, some of it dribbling down the corners of his mouth.  Goten leaned in to catch the drops on his tongue, bracing his hands against his husband’s chest.

“What did you use the second wish for?”

Trunks pulled the bottle back and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.  He leaned down to kiss him.

“You’ll see.”


End file.
